OCR Correction Tool for Linguistic Corpora

We introduce a new tool for correcting OCR errors of materials in a repository of cultural materials. The poster is aimed to all who are interested in digital humanities and who might find our tool useful. The poster will focus on the OCR correction tool and on the background processes. We have started a project on materials published in Finno-Ugric languages in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. The materials are digitised in Russia. As they arrive, we publish them in DSpace (fennougrica.kansalliskirjasto.fi). For research purposes, the results of the OCR must be corrected manually. For this we have built a new tool. Although similar tools exist, we found in-house development necessary in order to serve the researchers' needs. The tool enables exporting the corrected text as required by the researchers. It makes it possible to distribute the correction tasks and their supervision. After a supervisor has approved a text as finalised, the new version of the work will replace the old one in DSpace. The project has - benefitted the small language communities, - opened channels for cooperation in Russia. - increased our capabilities in digital humanities. The OCR correction tool will be available to others.

Making the impact on research and society : a case study: crowdsourcing solutions developed for the linguistic research and citizen science

Can crowdsourcing solutions serve many masters? Can they be beneficial for both, for the layman or native speakers of minority languages on the one hand and serious linguistic research on the other? How did an infrastructure that was designed to support linguistics turn out to be a solution for raising awareness of native languages? Since 2012 the National Library of Finland has been developing the Digitisation Project for Kindred Languages, in which the key objective is to support a culture of openness and interaction in linguistic research, but also to promote crowdsourcing as a tool for participation of the language community in research. In the course of the project, over 1,200 monographs and nearly 111,000 pages of newspapers in Finno-Ugric languages will be digitised and made available in the Fenno-Ugrica digital collection. This material was published in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, and users have had only sporadic access to the material. The publication of open-access and searchable materials from this period is a goldmine for researchers. Historians, social scientists and laymen with an interest in specific local publications can now find text materials pertinent to their studies. The linguistically-oriented population can also find writings to delight them: (1) lexical items specific to a given publication, and (2) orthographically-documented specifics of phonetics. In addition to the open access collection, we developed an open source code OCR editor that enables the editing of machine-encoded text for the benefit of linguistic research. This tool was necessary since these rare and peripheral prints often include already archaic characters, which are neglected by modern OCR software developers but belong to the historical context of kindred languages, and are thus an essential part of the linguistic heritage. When modelling the OCR editor, it was essential to consider both the needs of researchers and the capabilities of lay citizens, and to have them participate in the planning and execution of the project from the very beginning. By implementing the feedback iteratively from both groups, it was possible to transform the requested changes as tools for research that not only supported the work of linguistics but also encouraged the citizen scientists to face the challenge and work with the crowdsourcing tools for the benefit of research. This presentation will not only deal with the technical aspects, developments and achievements of the infrastructure but will highlight the way in which user groups, researchers and lay citizens were engaged in a process as an active and communicative group of users and how their contributions were made to mutual benefit.

OCR Correction Tool for Linguistic Corpora

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Neue Forschungsergebnisse zur Phonologie und Morphologie des Erzanischen

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Meditationes sancti evangelii 10

Arkit: A-B4.

Kyriale, Sequentiarium (MS C.ö.I.23)

A graduale and a sequentiarium were copied in the reformation period for use in the Diocese of Turku, possibly in Raisio. The graduale in Finnish appears to depend on Jacobus Finno's hymnbook of 1586, whereas the sequentiarium is probably somewhat older, possibly even coeval with Mathias Westh's liturgical codex (1540's). The present fragments probably come from at least two (possibly three) originally distinct books or booklets.

Yxi vähä suomenkielinen wirsikiria, suomencocouxis Jumalata kijttä suomenkielellä, tehty m. Jacobilda Suomalaiselda, ja muild Suomen papeilda. Cunnjalisten herrain Turun pispan m. Erichin, ja capitularesten tiedhost ja suosjost, H. Hemmingin Maschun kirckoherran vaevall ja culutuxell, ensins präntätty Stocholmisa. Mutta nyt Herman Sulkin käskyst, Staffan Myllärin präntill uudhistettu Rostochis.

Koonnut ja suomentanut Jacobus Finno, täydentänyt Hemminki Henrikinpoika Maskulainen. Useilla lehdillä numerointivirheitä, numerointi: [6], 1-62 93 [po. 63] 64-94 94 [po. 95] 96-161 192 [po. 162] 163-180 161 [po. 181] 182-223, [5]. - Lehtien 197 ja 198 sivut painettu väärään järjestykseen. Viimeisellä sivulla oikolukijan jälkisanat, allekirjoitus S. I. C. S. = Simon Johannis Carelius. Arkit: A-T12 V6. Puuttuu kansalliskokoelmasta.

Budenz-album. Budenz József XXV éves nyelvészeti müködése emlékére kiadják tanítványai.

Includes bibliography.

Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen.

Title from cover.

Försök till ett nordiskt mythologiskt lexikon, jemte ett sammandrag af finska mythologien /

"Ett sammandrag af finska mythologien" (65 p.) has special t.p. and title: Finska mythologien i sammandrag.

Zur ostjakischen Lautgeschichte. I. Über den vokalismus der ersten Silbe.

"Sonderabdruck aus den Memoires de la Société finno-ougrienne."

Nordische Reisen und Forschungen /

Vols. 7-10 and 12 are reprints. Vol. 7 has imprint: Bloomington : Indiana University, 1966. Vols. 8-10 and 12 have added imprint: Leipzig : Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1969.

Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen.

Vols. 1-<31> include section: Anzeiger der finnisch-ugrischen forschungen, having separate title-page and paging.

The Mythology of all races ...

I. Greek and Roman, by W. S. Fox, 1916.--II. Eddic, by J. A. Macculloch. 1930.--III. Celtic, by J. A. Macculloch; Slavic by Jan M_achal. 1918.--IV. Finno-Ugric, Siberian, by Uno Holmberg. 1927.--V. Semitic, by S. H. Langdon. 1931.--VI. Indian, by A. B. Keith; Iranian, by A. J. Carnoy. 1917.--VII. Armenian, by M. H. Ananikian; African, by Alice Werner. 1925.--VIII. Chinese, by J. C. Ferguson; Japanese, by Masaharu Anesaki. 1928.--IX. Oceanic, by R. B. Dixon. 1916.--X. North American, by H. B. Alexander. 1916.--XI. Latin-American, by H. B. Alexander. 1920.--XII. Egyptian, by W. M. M_uller; Indo-Chinese, by J. G. Scott. 1918.--XIII. Complete index to volumes I-XII. 1932.